How would you define Truth?

[Pythagoras]

The thing is though, it all balances out in the end (positive/negative) -- so I think it would be the difference between a roller coaster ride across the park, or walking across. I don't think a life without emotions would be as worthless as you're imagining, just a lot less 'adventurous'. There are times for everyone when they aren't feeling emotional about something, and it's not like it seems worthless.

I said one might find the idea of an entire life, devoid of emotions as worthless, not that specific emotions should make one feel worthless.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

My own views are that our emotions are important to us, a life without emotions might appeal to some (never having to suffer grief, anger, jealously etc), but my own view is that we accept these negative emotions as the price we have to pay to enjoy the positive emotions of joy, ecstasy, surprise, happiness.

I think a life devoid of all emotions would be a life not worth living. I think emotions are a unique human character (and higher mammals) that do, and will continue to differentiate ourselves from AI (something I see as a positive thing).

Since the turn of the Enlightenment we have been promised a mind-panacea, either from psychotherapy, pharmaceuticals, behavioural psychology, neurobiology etc.

I agree. I think this is the kernel of why I never ran in those geeky circles full of hyper-rational types who see their emotions as an evolutionarily obsolete obstacle worth getting over, and who aim to make all their decision and form all their opinions based on pure cold reason. I'm just not cold enough.

Not that it's not important to be practical and think problems through logically. But I see just as much folly in being all head and no heart as vice-versa. I've learned that pure reason cannot produce passion and drive, and reason is renowned for its failure to create meaning in life. Because of this, I'll readily admit there are things I react strongly to, things I like and dislike, things I believe and things I reject, for reasons that are not at all rational. And so long as I behave sensibly and with compassion, I don't feel I owe anyone an apology for this.

 

[Pythagoras]

^^

This is the point I was alluding to. That we are all an admixture of emotion and rationality with some more emotional than others, and some more rational than others. I don't believe that being analytic trumps being emotive in all aspects of my life. Having to bottle up emotions through 10 years of boarding school has taught me that bottling up emotions is psychologically damaging, and that appreciating one's emotive self, together with our rational self bears no contradiction.

The demotion of emotion in favour of the rational is a societal ill, at the root of many of our societal and psychological problems.

 

[TheLostBoys]

And that is the triple truth, Ruth!

 

[ebola?]

I agree. I think this is the kernel of why I never ran in those geeky circles full of hyper-rational types who see their emotions as an evolutionarily obsolete obstacle worth getting over, and who aim to make all their decision and form all their opinions based on pure cold reason.

mmm...I might personify the 'ethic' of such circles. IME, this analytical bent is more of a default disposition, not a concerted effort to quarantine and suppress emotion. Rather, emotion naturally takes a subordinate role, corroborating analytical thought. However, emotion plays a key role in directing analytical thought (if implicitly). Even if we fail to see emotions' function, it is our affect that assigns tasks to reason, setting reasoning in motion and according meaning to its conclusions. It's more that these super-geeks don't understand their emotions, and this is facilitated by how muted they appear.

ebola

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ I actually always had you pegged for a pretty passionate man
That's a very good explanation, though -- a lot of 'head types' are that way because they're intimately in touch with their thinking side, and are not in touch with, or comfortable directly addressing, their feelings. This makes sense in light of debates I've had with proponents of opinions I've deemed kind of cold (libertarianism and eugenics come to mind). When I counter their points, especially with maddeningly simple appeals to 'That's not what people want.', they get worked up! I'm sure to them, I've kicked over their meticulously crafted sandcastle. But they may not have stopped to think that the whole reason they lovingly built such a logically intricate fortress in the first place, was because of something they believed due to passion, taste, or intuition.

This, to me, really forms the basis of the perennial diversity of human viewpoints. People will never reach worldwide consensus on most major issues. This is not because either side, or both, are necessarily working with flawed logic. On the contrary, most hot button issues have two or more sides that both have very well logically developed arguments. The stalemate comes from the basal fact that people take sides on issues more due to what resonates with them and clicks with their own life experience of what's true and real, than due to weighing the relative logical merit of each side.

I think liberals and conservatives, for example, have been arguing since time immemorial over whether societal change is to be feared or not. But the best argument from a liberal in favor of liberalism will not sway a conservative who is just threatened on a visceral level by things new, different, and unprecedented. And vice versa.